Happily Ever After
by herworship429
Summary: The things that made them heroes came at a steep price. But maybe it wasn't all out of reach.


A highly unromancey Bruce/Natasha romance in five parts. With a tiny bit of Tony/Pepper tossed in at the end. Hope you enjoy.

* * *

"I never wanted kids."

Bruce thought this was a strange thing to say in the midst of a long, comfortable silence. But then, regardless of what the others might have had to say on the subject, he was not an expert in the many eccentricities of Natasha Romanoff. Just because she liked to sit in the corner of his lab, sipping on tea and reading trashy romance novels while he worked, didn't mean he understood how her mind functioned. Barton had to know her better than he did. He was pretty sure they were dating. Or, at least sleeping together. Except, if she had a boyfriend to hang out with, why did she spend all of her downtime with _him_?

And of all the possible conversation topics, why did it have to be that one?

"Uh, okay," he put down his pen and removed his glasses.

"I mean, it wouldn't exactly be responsible, right? Given how screwed up I am. Given all that I've done. Not that I want the mess."

"Children are messy," Bruce conceded with a thoughtful nod, "But some people would argue that it's worth it."

"Would you?" she looked up at him sharply, her hair bouncing slightly as she moved her head. He had to admit to a strange fascination with the way her hair moved. He would _not_ admit that this was why he hung around the training room whenever she was there. Because he tried not to be creepy if he could help it.

"Well?"

She was still staring at him, expecting an answer. It wasn't that he didn't want to give her one… well, alright, it was that he didn't want to give her one, because this was a subject he didn't like to dwell on. Once upon a time, he had assumed that there would one day be a couple of little geniuses running around, hopefully ones who had Betty's looks and social skills and both of their brains. But things had changed. In one bought of arrogance and idiocy, he had wiped away that future as carelessly as an equation on a whiteboard.

"Now? Given my… condition? No," he answered finally, ignoring the shadow of sadness behind her eyes. They were really very pretty eyes, though they sometimes stared at him as if he was some specimen to be dissected, and that made him nervous. She was a spy after all; secrets were her trade. He didn't know what exactly she knew about him, and most of the time he didn't want to know. He liked to think they'd made a silent pact on that subject, because he might have snuck a peek at SHIELD personnel files when Tony hacked the Helicarrier database, and he might have seen some of that ledger she was always talking about.

"But you wanted kids before?" she cocked her head to one side and studied him for a moment, then nodded, "I can see that. You'd be a good father."

"I'm not so sure about that," he looked down at his hands as he twined his fingers together.

"I am," she stood up and tossed her book onto a large pile she kept next to the sofa, "Trust me, Bruce, any kid would be lucky to have you."

"Thanks, but… it's a little late for that now, isn't it?"

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, and she put a hand on his shoulder as she brushed past him, "Some people would argue that it's never too late."

* * *

She should have known getting that close to the target was a bad idea, especially when the guy was waving a grenade around. But she had been playing distraction, and Clint had needed more time… well, she counted herself lucky that she had managed to walk away with a few minor burns and cuts, and that she was good enough at hiding injuries to disguise the limp in her left leg. Her ankle was killing her though; either she risked further injury by allowing Fury to task her to a new mission, or she coped to it and allowed herself to be carted away to the hospital deck.

Lucky for her, her next "mission" was of the "go check on Stark" variety, and she had the next few days off afterwards. So after doing her due-diligence and making sure Tony hadn't had a nervous breakdown, hadn't disappeared, or injured himself, or blown anything important up, she limped to the elevators and went up to R&D.

Bruce was sitting at his usual stool, scribbling notes and reading through a magazine article. He looked up when the doors opened and she came in, stumbling a bit. A hand on a nearby table kept her upright, but he knew something was wrong if Natasha of all people was falling over sideways.

"Hey, slow down," he took her arm and helped her to her couch. She remembered the day he finally realized it had been put there; he had wandered in reading something, and looked at it with an adorably-perplexed expression, before asking her how long it had been there. She'd actually had him convinced for nearly a week that it had been there since he moved into Stark Tower and he just had never noticed. It was a nice couch; she had made sure of that. When she mentioned that it might be nice, given how many nights Bruce ended up slumped over his workstation instead of shuffling back to his bedroom, if he had a place to sleep, Tony had just handed her a home decorator magazine and told her to "go crazy". She pretended he didn't know that she had really wanted to couch for herself, and he didn't ask any prodding questions about why she felt the desire or need to sleep in Bruce's lab.

That was one question she didn't know how to answer, even to herself. As much as the Hulk sometimes frightened her, Bruce didn't. He also didn't coddle, unless absolutely necessary. Even now, as he tsked her for ignoring her body's protests and went to find a medical kit while she stripped down to her underwear, he went about his doctoring without judgment or demands that she be more careful next time. Given that Clint should have known by now just how unbreakable she was, and that Bruce knew just how breakable she could be, she was always a little surprised at his lack of reaction when she showed up looking for a quickie patch-up.

"You know, the SHIELD doctors don't bite," he said after a few moments, adjusting a bandage over a particularly nasty burn on her left shoulder, "Most of them are really very nice. Except Perkins… but every hospital has its bad egg."

"Yeah, I know," she winced slightly and tried not to shiver as his fingertips brushed the back of her neck when he went to move her hair out of the way of the next bandage, "Who do you think I was stuck with before you came along?"

"Well, I'm glad to be of help, but I'm not sure I'm really qualified for this," he pointed out, "I'm not actually a medical doctor, you know. Most of my degrees are in physics."

"Most of them? So what else are you an expert in, doc?"

He rattled off three degree specifications before he realized she was flirting with him. She knew this because that was how far he got before he started stuttering and pulled his hands away from her back as if she had suddenly become a hot coal. She couldn't help the decidedly-un-secret-agent-like giggle that escaped her throat. It took him a minute, and he finished patching her up as quickly as he possibly could.

"You should probably see an actual doctor about the ankle," he told her as she took up her customary spot on the sofa and fished a book out of the pile.

"But you're so good at playing," she teased with a wide grin. He blushed and sat down, eyes resolutely glued to his notebook.

It was fun, teasing him, but she was beginning to wish he wouldn't just blush and stutter. She was beginning to wish he would flirt back. She was beginning to wonder what it would be like to kiss the good doctor.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that, so she went back to her book and pretended that those thoughts didn't enter her mind nearly every time she saw Bruce Banner.

They still did, but Natasha was a spy. She was good at pretending.

* * *

The first time it happened had been following a particularly difficult and harrowing group mission, and they had only just barely made it out alive, and so they both chalked it up to that and tried to ignore it. The second time, it was harder to do so. And the third time…

By their third kiss, both Bruce and Natasha were having a difficult time remembering why they didn't want it to happen in the first place.

* * *

Natasha had thought she understood 'dating'. After her first date with Bruce, she realized that she had held a very skewed idea of the whole concept. They went out to an actual restaurant, away from the prying eyes of their well-meaning and curious teammates, though Natasha had led Clint on a merry chase that first evening.

"And that is why I insisted on leaving two hours before our reservations," she informed a bewildered Bruce after they had finally lost their tail. He had just laughed, and finally relaxed.

It was nice. Exceedingly nice. They talked about a myriad of things, and for once in her life, Natasha thought she understood what it felt like to be normal. They went on a stroll through Central Park afterwards, which wasn't the most advisable idea for most people, but when a would-be mugger came out of the underbrush brandishing a knife, it had taken her all of two seconds to dispatch him. Bruce could see the glint of eyes in the dark around them, could hear the harsh whispers of the criminal's companions, and they both heard the scuffle as they scampered away.

"Where were we?" she asked Bruce, trying to remember where they had left off the conversation. He just shook his head and smiled.

They weren't bothered again that night, or any other night they went walking in the park. Word had spread quickly about what happens to you if you try and rob the foxy redhead who walks in the park at night with the nerdy professor.

* * *

His untidy mop of dark hair had a reddish tint to it when the sun hit it just the right way, and he had her unsettling green eyes, but there were times in which there was simply no doubting that Bryan Anthony Banner was his father's son. The afternoon when Natasha realized that he had mastered the basics of algebra at the age of six was one of those moments. The morning two years later when he and Maria nearly set the Tower on fire in their efforts to build their own version of Tony's suit… well, that was one of those moments when she wished they didn't live in such proximity to Tony Stark. All attempts on Natasha's part to explain to him that his unchecked progeny was having a profoundly negative effect on her son fell on deaf ears, and to be honest, she didn't really mean it. Maria was sweet. It wasn't her fault she had inherited most of her father's insanity, and she knew how much Bryan enjoyed having another kid around who was just as smart as he was. The one attempt made to put them into a normal school had been a disastrous failure all around, and Natasha had found herself for once on the same side as Tony Stark when Bruce and Pepper had expressed a desire to try it again.

They were a strange family, Natasha acknowledged, and it was a strange environment to raise children in. But for better or worse, they all were who they all were. Squabbles small and large, it didn't matter all that much to her.

Because whenever they started to, she would remember that conversation all those years ago. She would remember the ache in Bruce's voice, and the resignation in her own. She would remember how sure they had been that this was all out of their reach, and then she would look at Bryan and smile.

Maybe 'happily ever after' wasn't the right way to put it. But they were happy. And that was something.

* * *

Reviews are nice if you are so inclined.


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